


Like Brothers

by xylodemon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Pre-Rebellion Story, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 08:10:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xylodemon/pseuds/xylodemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Maester Coleman finally found them, they were both dirt and weeds to the elbows, laughing and sweating in the bright Vale sunlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Brothers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmynIthilien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmynIthilien/gifts).



> Written for [](http://emynithilien.livejournal.com/profile)[**emynithilien**](http://emynithilien.livejournal.com/) and Round Seven of [](http://got_exchange.livejournal.com/profile)[**got_exchange**](http://got_exchange.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Set before the Rebellion, no spoilers. Includes mentions of underage drinking.

The weather had been calm outside the Gates of the Moon, and the sky clear save for a bank of fog that ringed the top of the Eyrie like a crown, but it had changed for the worse somewhere between Snow and Sky, the wind coming on suddenly, in fierce and shrieking gusts. More than once, Ned had closed his eyes and clung to his mule, afraid he would be blown off the narrow path. He was inside the mountain now, climbing a set of steep stairs that seemed to be cut right into the rock, but he could still hear the wind howling at the mouth of the tunnel, could still see it churning up dirt and leaves when he dared to look down. Ned was used to the cold, because it was always cold in the North, but everything here felt damp and sharp in a way he'd never known at Winterfell, and the last handful of stairs left him tired and dizzy and strangely breathless.

"The air is thinner up here," his escort said brightly. He wore a leather jerkin and a cloak embroidered with the moon and falcon of House Arryn; Ned couldn't remember his name. "In a turn or two, you'll hardly notice it at all. Spend half a year up here, and the next time you're on the ground you'll swear you're breathing mud."

Ned frowned and took a deep, careful breath that burned the back of his throat. He didn't want to stay here half a year. He wasn't sure he wanted to stay here at all. He'd always thought he would foster somewhere in the North, just like Brandon.

"Lord Arryn would've been here to greet you, but he was called away the night before last," the man said, leading Ned across a wide entrance hall, then down a winding corridor lined with iron torches. The walls were white marble veined with blue, and the floors were polished blue tiles that clicked under Ned's boots. "Some trouble between two of his lords. He said I should introduce you to his other ward, Robert Baratheon. It's just about time for his lessons, so he's probably hiding from Maester Coleman in the godswood."

It wasn't a proper godswood, not like the ones kept at Winterfell and Last Hearth and Karhold. It was more of a courtyard, formed by the walls of the Eyrie's seven towers, and it was planted like a garden, the grass and flowers dotted with statues of white stone. The largest was of a weeping woman, and a boy Ned's age stood beside her, wearing a black and gold doublet and holding a broken practice sword like a spear. He had a square jaw and inky-black hair, and he studied Ned with wide, blue eyes.

"Robert, this is Eddard Stark. He's come to foster here, just like you."

They stared at each other as the man left, then Robert said, "Eddard Stark."

"Ned," Ned said quietly. The wind was easier in the godswood, but the air felt misty and damp. He thought he could hear water running. "Everyone calls me Ned."

"From the North, are you? They say Northerners sleep on blocks of ice and eat bowls of snow for breakfast."

"We eat porridge for breakfast." House Baratheon was in the Stormlands, but Ned couldn't think of a good jape about people in the Stormlands. Winterfell rarely concerned itself with anything below the Neck, except to say that southron courts were full of sunshine and singers and nonsense. "Porridge and bacon."

"Have you been to the Wall?"

"No," Ned admitted, his voice slightly sour. His father had last visited Castle Black three years ago, and he'd not thought Ned old enough to make the trip. "My father has seen it. And my older brother."

"What about snarks? Or grumpkins?"

"No. I don't think those are real, anyway."

Robert jabbed the broken sword into the dirt and gave Ned a narrow look. "What about Others?"

"My father says they died thousands of years ago, but Old Nan says there might still be some, out beyond the Wall."

"Nurses," Robert said, snorting. "Mine told me there are mermaids in Shipbreaker Bay." He crouched down beside the weeping woman and started digging underneath her with the splintered end of the sword. "I think she just wanted me to eat my greens. She said they only show themselves to boys who clean their plates."

Ned smiled at that. "It's wildlings, in the North." Old Nan was full of stories meant to make children behave, but only Benjen and Lyanna still believed her, and Benjen less than half the time. "They come for little boys who won't clean their plates and little girls who won't go to bed." He took a step closer to Robert, watching as he cleared more dirt away from the statue. "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for treasure."

"Treasure?"

" _Treasure_. The Griffin King married the daughter of a pirate, so he must've had treasure," Robert explained. He rubbed his face, leaving a streak of dirt along his cheek. "I bet he had gold and silver and jewels, and I bet he hid them somewhere before Artys Arryn flew up here to kill him." 

Ned frowned. "How did he fly?"

"My father said he rode on the back of a giant falcon. My nurse said he sewed falcon wings to his boots." Robert shrugged, as if it didn't matter either way. "Did you want to help me?"

Ned hesitated; he was wearing his best doublet, grey velvet with white stitching at the collar and cuffs. He started to say no, but Robert caught his sleeve with a dirty hand and tugged him closer. With his other hand, he pulled a rusty garden trowel from a clump of flowers and pointed to the other side of the statue. The trowel was missing half its blade.

"You can start over there."

When Maester Coleman finally found them, they were both dirt and weeds to the elbows, laughing and sweating in the bright Vale sunlight.

 

+

 

Ned and Robert took their lessons together, in the first three hours after the morning meal. Maester Coleman's turret had the most sunlight during that time, and it was best to get Robert started early, before he had a chance to distract himself with other things. Robert liked history and warfare and law well enough, but he cared little for reading and letters, and almost nothing for sums, or the bland, tedious business of running a successful household.

"It's all rubbish," Robert said darkly. They were in the gallery now -- and had been for the last hour -- watching Lord Arryn's nephew and cousin spar, but anger twitched at Robert's mouth. Like as not, he was still smarting over Maester Coleman's complaints about his penmanship, and the lecture Lord Arryn had given him on his responsibilities to House Baratheon. "Boring rubbish."

Ned turned back to the match, studying Elbert Arryn as he drove Denys Arryn across the courtyard. Elbert was almost seven-and-ten, two years older than Denys and nearly a head taller, but Denys had better form and footwork. He would beat Elbert easily once he had more strength in his arms.

"Relax your shoulders, Denys," called Ser Waynwood, the Eyrie's master-at-arms. He was a tall man with a hooked nose and a scar twisting the line of his mouth. "You're as taut as a Dornish longbow."

"Rubbish, and I don't need any of it," Robert insisted.

"But you do," Ned said, watching as Elbert swept Denys' legs out from under him. "If you're going to rule the Stormlands one day, then you need to know how."

"I do not. When I take Storm's End, I'll have a steward and a castellan and a master-of-horse and... and people. I'll have people. If they're minding the storerooms and ledgers, I won't need to bother with them."

Ned turned back to the match again, biting his lip as he swallowed a laugh. Robert reminded him a good deal of Brandon -- quick to anger but also quick to laugh, and quick to dismiss anything he didn't immediately find fun or amusing. Brandon also balked at Maester Walys' drier lessons, convinced it didn't matter because Winterfell all but ran itself. Ned often wondered if the maester at the Rills was having any better luck teaching Brandon about taxes and incomes and exports. Ned was a fair student himself; he didn't like letters and sums anymore than Robert, but he was willing to do the work if it spared him a lecture or a night without supper.

"Come on," Robert said, tugging on Ned's wrist. "Let's go and find Fat Cait before she has her nap." Fat Cait was much like Old Nan, an old woman who'd come to the Eyrie to wet-nurse for an Arryn child now fifty years dead. She had a tiny room in the bowels of the servants' tower, where she spun lumpy skeins of wool with her gnarled hands and told stories to anyone willing to listen. "She promised to tell us about Queen Regent Sharra Arryn and Visenya Targaryen's dragon."

"Queen Sharra didn't even ride Visenya Targaryen's dragon."

"Her son did, and he wasn't even as old as we are."

 

+

 

"We shouldn't be doing this," Ned pointed out.

"Quiet." Robert took a few more steps down the corridor, then turned back toward Ned. He was probably frowning; Ned couldn't see his face in the poor light. The torches on the walls had been snuffed hours ago, and the moon was shrouded in fog and barely a sliver. "You worry like an old woman. I'm hungry."

Robert was always hungry these days, perhaps because he was growing so tall. He'd only turned twelve a sennight past, but he looked closer to five-and-ten. He was already a full head taller than Ned -- who wouldn't be twelve for another four turns -- and was broader across the shoulders than Ned ever hoped to be. At supper, Robert had finished three plates of mutton and potatoes, and had then filled another with sweets. He had a terrible taste for sweets, and the serving girls just laughed and looked the other way whenever he sneaked tarts or candied fruit between meals.

The kitchen was warmer and brighter than the corridor, lit by the handful of embers dying in the huge brick oven. The brindle dog looked up at them as they came in, cocking his head, then made a short sound -- _wfft_ \-- and went back to gnawing his piece of bone. Their footsteps seemed loud, until Robert tripped over a large copper pot and the sound of metal clanking against stone echoed off the walls.

"I thought you wanted it quiet," Ned said.

Robert was already gone, cursing under his breath as he rummaged through one of the pantries. He came back with a plate of honeycakes and a small pot of cream, and they settled down at the long table the servants used for making bread, eating in silence until Ned snorted at the crumbs and cream all over Robert's mouth.

"You're a mess," he said, licking honey from the pad of his thumb.

Robert narrowed his eyes, then stuck two fingers in the cream and poked Ned in the cheek. "So are you."

Ned wiped his face with his sleeve, then snatched up some loose flour from the table. He meant to throw it at Robert's nightshirt, but Robert caught his wrist at the last moment and the flour hit him square in the face.

"Your frozen Northern bastard," Robert sputtered, reaching for the flour. The pile was too far away, so he launched himself at Ned instead, knocking the honeycakes and cream off the table as he pulled Ned down to the floor.

They wrestled from one side of the kitchen to the other, from the table to the oven and then from the oven to the spit, where Ned stuck his shoulder in a puddle of cold grease. Robert was stronger than Ned, and he refused to give up, even when Ned started pinching his sides, and Ned wondered what was making the most noise -- the broken crockery, or the copper pot skidding across the floor again, or the barking brindle dog, or Robert, who was laughing so hard he was gasping and red in the face.

Ned managed to roll them over, if only because Robert couldn't breathe. A door creaked open, and Ned froze with Robert half-pinned to the floor, heat burning in his cheeks as he looked up Becka, one of the kitchen maids. She had her hands on her hips, her robe yawning open around a nightrail sewn with blue flowers. 

"I thought it might be you two."

"It was just me," Robert said, dusting himself off as he got to his feet. "Ned wouldn't have come if I hadn't made him."

"You needn't tell me what I already know." She frowned at the broken honeycakes on the floor, then fixed Robert with a narrow look. "If you wanted a sweet bit before bed, you should have told me. I would've brought you a plate before I turned in."

"I'm sorry," Robert said. He almost sounded it.

"I'm sorry," Ned said as well. "We'll clean it up."

"No, you won't," Becka said, shaking her head. "Go on to bed, my little lords. I've had enough bother and noise for one night."

 

+

 

"Keep your arm up, Ned," Ser Waynwood barked.

Ned adjusted his stance just as Robert swung at him; their swords clacked together with the bright sound of wood against wood, and Ned hissed as the blow rattled up into his shoulder. He took a step back, which immediately proved to be a mistake. Robert had no patience for proper form, and he wielded his sword like a club, but he was far stronger than Ned -- strong enough to drive Ned back the moment he gave any ground.

"Spread your feet more, Robert. Spread your feet and bend your knees, and -- better, better."

Robert lunged in, nearly pinning Ned to the armory door, but Ned darted away, ducking as Robert's sword sliced over his head. He countered Robert's next two swings, then stepped back as Robert made to jab, then pressed in as Robert lifted his arm too high. Robert's sword came down in a wide arc, his face pinched with irritation, and Ned cracked him flat on the wrist, dancing back as Robert bellowed and dropped his sword in the dirt.

"Well done," Robert said, wincing as he flexed his hand. "Seven hells, that hurts."

"You left yourself open," Ser Waynwood said, lifting his own sword to demonstrate. "With your arm at the proper angle, he wouldn't have had the room."

"I don't much care for swords," Robert said, frowning at his wrist. He would have a large bruise tomorrow, but it did not look to be broken. "I want a hammer. Orys Baratheon took Storm's End with a hammer."

"Orys Baratheon took Storm's End with Rhaenys Targaryen's dragon."

"If you like, ser. I still want one."

Ser Waynwood considered Robert for a moment, his scarred mouth twisted in thought. "I daresay you're strong enough for a hammer, and you'll soon be tall enough as well. But you'll never use it properly -- not with the way you move your feet. As heavy as a hammer is, and all of its weight at one end, if you lose your footing for even a moment, it will swing you right into the dirt."

"My feet," Robert said slowly. He squared up to Ned, taking care to find the perfect stance. "Come on, Stark. Let's see if you can get lucky again."

 

+

 

Robert returned from Storm's End with a tight mouth and hollow eyes, and Ned paced outside his chambers for the better part of two hours, unsure of what to do or say.

He'd already heard the dreadful news -- Robert's parents drowned within sight of safe anchorage, their ship shattering on the rocks as Robert and Stannis watched. Ser Penrose had sent a raven to the Eyrie right after it happened, and Ned had worn his knees out in the days that followed, praying in the Eyrie's excuse for a godswood that Robert would find some peace.

Ned jumped as the door suddenly creaked open. Robert looked rough, his shirt loose and his unlaced breeches hanging crookedly from his hips. His breath smelled strongly of wine.

"Are you coming in?" he asked quietly. "I can hear you breathing out here."

"Robert," Ned began, still uncertain, "I -- "

"Don't say anything," Robert said, hustling Ned into his chambers and kicking the door closed behind them. "Don't say a fucking word."

Robert sank down into his couch, gestured for Ned to join him, and poured himself another cup of wine.

Ned didn't speak. He sat there until Robert drank himself to sleep, then called for one of the guards to help him put Robert to bed.

 

+

 

"Pass the wine," Robert said, leaning back against the weeping woman.

They were in the godwood because the stables had seemed to dangerous, too close to the waycastle Sky. It wasn't fully manned in times of peace, but it still held three or four guards, enough to offer warmth and meat and fresh mules to anyone climbing the mountain at night. Ned had been content to stay in his room, but Robert had wanted to be outside. It was the only thing about the Eyrie he truly disliked, that it was such a hassle to go hunting or take a ride in the woods. 

The Crone's Lantern was high in the sky, just visible behind a bank of midnight fog, and Alyssa's Tears roared beyond the castle towers. Ned took a long swallow of wine, wincing at the slightly sour taste. He rarely drank much, and he feared he would have a headache tomorrow. He could already feel a dull tightness around his eyes.

"I'll take Storm's End in another year or two," Robert said, his voice strangely grave. "I want you to come with me."

"Storm's End?"

"I want you for my steward. Or my castellan. Master-at-arms." Robert shrugged and drank some more wine. "Whatever you like, as long as you come."

Ned shook his head, blinking as everything tilted to one side. "I can't. I'm meant for Brandon's household. You know that."

"The Others take Brandon," Robert said, without any real heat. He'd only met Brandon a handful of times, but they'd got on rather well. "What's Benjen going to do? Join the Kingsguard? Take the black?"

Ned frowned. He hadn't given much thought to Benjen's future; Benjen wasn't yet fifteen.

"Let Benjen freeze to death counting Brandon's saddle girths and barrels of salt pork. I want you with me." Robert sat up a little and groped around for his wineskin, the settled back against the weeping woman with a sigh. "If your father grants my wish, it will be Lyanna's household as well as mine. I think she'd like that, having a familiar face around."

A curl of wind slid through the godswood, and Ned shivered, pulling his cloak closed. He knew it was far colder in the North, and he wondered if he was finally getting soft -- _southron soft_ , as his father's men said. 

"If nothing else, you'll keep me from murdering Stannis."

"Maybe," Ned said, and swallowed a little more wine.

 

+

 

"I will kill him," Robert roared, his voice cracking through Harrenhal's godswood like thunder. "I will fucking kill him."

Brandon said nothing. He was as angry as Robert -- perhaps more -- but he'd slipped into a quiet fury, silent where Robert was raging. He was sitting underneath Harrenhal's only proper weirwood, stabbing at the ground with a stick as long as his arm.

"The next time I see him, I will wrap my hands around his throat."

"Shut up, Robert," Ned snapped.

Robert whirled around as if slapped, his hands clenched into fists. _Let him hit me. I'll gladly pay that price if it keeps him alive._

"Ned," Brandon said quietly, weirwood leaves falling from his lap as he stood.

"Rhaegar is the crown prince," Ned continued. "If you -- "

Robert's face twisted with anger. "I don't care what he is. He -- "

"Do you think the king cares about your pride? Do you think he cares that Rhaegar insulted you? If he hears you have threatened Rhaegar, he will have your head." Ned caught Robert's arm, squeezing until Robert met his eyes. "Would you make Lyanna a widow before you are even wed?"

Brandon muttered under his breath and walked away, leaves and humus crunching under his feet. Robert watched him go, his hands shaking at his sides, then sighed, the fight leaving him in a sudden rush.

"You're right, Ned," he said, rubbing his hand over his face. "You're right. You're always fucking right."

 

+

 

"It will come to war," Jon Arryn said. "I see no other way."

The solar was silent, save for the soft sounds of Robert pouring himself a drink. He drained the cup in one long, gulping swallow, then carefully set it on the table.

"Ned," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Will you go to war with me?"

Ned nodded. "Yes."

He would go to war. He would fight for his father, and for Brandon, and for Lyanna, and for Robert.


End file.
